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Given my obsession with the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon, I pretty much jump when I see any books about 18th century Scotland/Scottish immigrants. I picked this book up hoping to get a taste of some bodice-ripping, witch-cursing colonial goodness before Gabaldon’s next book comes out. I was’t too disappointed with Midwife of the Blue Ridge. While it’s not a great book, it is fun.

The book’s description says that “As the lone survivor of an attack on her village, she is thought to be cursed…she hopes to escape the superstitions of the old country…” This all happens within the first couple of chapters, and then we never again hear of her being considered a witch. Maggie is a young Scottish midwife who signs herself into indentured servitude in America. She arrives in 1763, around the time of the Native American uprising known as Pontiac’s War.

Maggie’s feisty, she’s gorgeous, she catches the eye of all the red-blooded men in the colony. There are your usual characters: the folksy settlers, the super hot frontiersman who is afraid of marriage (of course), and the rich, titled, dissipated fop (read: villain). There are war parties, kidnappings, settler being thrown off their land, etc. Through it all, Maggie keeps her chin up.

There was nothing really surprising in this book, no plot twists that I didn’t see coming (ok, maybe a couple). But it’s a fun, escapist read.